Fear Me
by Juliette Louise
Summary: The Golden Army has burned the world clean of man's influence, with Nuada Silverlance at its helm.  When he accepts a human slave girl, he has no idea that he has played into the exiled Nuala's last desperate plan to end him.  Companion to "Fear Her".
1. Out of the Woods

**Warning: This story is rated "MA" for graphic sexuality and mature themes. One of these themes is that of slavery, and in particular sexual slavery. While I do not consider any scenes within to be definitively rape, if you are sensitive to the idea of one person being dominant over another sexually, you may want to skip this one. Read "Fear Her", the companion-piece to this story, instead.**

* * *

"_Now I am become death; the destroyer of worlds." -The Bhagavad Gita, Ancient human text_

I am called the Wanderer, but it was not always such. It was a different age then. I have lived an unfathomably long life, and I have been touched by the death around me. A kind father, a would-be lover, an entire race. Their faces swirl together in my mind at night, their voices speak to me in dreams.

Sometimes I feel that he is dead as well—that surely he died when our father's warm blood stained his silk robe, or when the denizens of this earth trembled before the might of his armies. I wonder if he feels echoes of this pain as I do.

Before then, further into the murky past even, I was called Ileah. It meant 'sunshine' in the old tongue—a fanciful summername given to me by my mother, whose face has now almost disappeared from my recollection. My brother was Indira, moonlight. We were of one mind, once, before our father's swordmasters took him away from the fields we played in, shaping him into a warrior. Before the endless war hardened him into a monster. I remember these days sometimes and weep for him, though he will never hear me. Our souls were severed the day this war began.

I-once Ileah, then Nuala, now Wanderer—am well-versed in the ways of magic. And alone atop my mountain I formed a plan, born out of bitterness and despair, and the tiny flicker of hope that still exists foolishly with me.

* * *

Men once had cities.

They rose into the air, steel and stone, men honeycombed inside like bees, bending the world to their will.

Then the armies of the Golden Ones came, sweeping away the towers with the magic of the old times. And behind them, the pale warriors, their armor glimmering in the light, tearing down the artifice of men and remaking the world in their image.

She did not see the vanguards of their destruction, as the oldest among them had. She had grown up in the ravenous forest, seeing the pale riders only from a distance. She had never seen the shining towers that men built—so she did not mourn them the way the old ones did.

If men had once had a word for their race, it had been lost. "The Unseen" was the closest thing they had to a name. The few glimpses she'd caught (fleeing their singing blades, hiding with shuddering breath) had stirred something in the most basic part of her mind. Honeyed eyes, rimmed in shadows, white flesh under silver armor, hair the color of new wheat.

The night was cold when they took her: autumn just out of reach, the taste of chill and smoke on the air.

They came as they always did, silently from the woods, sliding out of shadows like ghosts. They were grace in motion, and their beauty made her breath hitch, even as they cut down those she'd traveled with. She'd surpassed fear. Being found was a relief. It would bring an end to the grinding terror, the hunger, the disease. Maybe she would go to their gods.

So it came as a surprise when the kiss of their blades never came. A rider scooped her up, throwing her across the saddle of his horse like a ragdoll.

Suddenly the sounds of death were behind them, the frigid air rushing past her face, her human eyes blind in the darkness. It didn't occur to her to resist, to fight against the cold hand that held her wrist, or to strike at the nameless rider when he pulled a hooded cloak around her, settling her back on his horse and riding on.

They rode for days, speaking intermittently, their language sharp and brittle in her ears. None touched her. At dawn they dismounted, setting her on her side on the ground, wrists still bound, where she fell into a dreamless sleep until they rode again at dusk.

* * *

At last they reached the gates of the compound, its grey spires rising up out of virgin forests, against the backdrop of the mountains.

Later, entering the home of the Prince seemed dreamlike and distant—fear obscured observation. She kept her eyes down, her back still pressed into the cold armor of her captor.

Suddenly there was a flurry of activity. Women (so they did have women!) with their hands all over her, speaking rapidly in their sibilant tongue. Taking her down off the horse, catching her when her legs went out from under her, their extrinsic scent all around her.

They wound down long darkened hallways, her feet not moving under her, the speech gliding over her but never penetrating her understanding. Finally there was a soft palette under her, and darkness, and silence, and she slept.

The old women led her to a stone chamber with a hot spring, and she submerged herself in hot water for the first time. It was then that she heard the tongue of man spoken for the first time by one of the Unseen.

"Saorlaith. A pretty name for one of your kind, girl." The old woman said. Her white hair hung down her back in a thick braid, golden-tipped from when youth was still with her.

One of the other women was picking knots out of her hair with a comb, while another scrubbed layers of filth from her skin.

"Why am I here?" Saorlaith said, her voice rusty from disuse.

"Because the Prince has no time for a wife." She shrugged.

Saorlaith sat back, shivering, against the side of the spring. She'd assumed she'd be a slave, but to the Prince himself..?

The old woman snorted.

"Better that than dying in filth, with the rest of your race." She said.

* * *

Later, they dressed her in silk—black like her hair, blue for her eyes—garments so fine they felt alien against skin used to rough cotton and burlap. Her hair fell to her waist, clean and sweet-smelling.

Then there were more hallways, long winding stone corridors.

"Where is he?" She said, her voice sinking further into a whisper.

"Away at war—but he could be back at any day. Be ready always. Prince Nuada is fearsome in battle, but I've not known him to be cruel to slaves. Obey him, and your life here could be relatively pleasant."

Huge wooden doors, ornately carved, loomed before them. With the slightest push by the old woman, they swung open. Beyond was only darkness, but hands pushed her in, and the doors closed behind her.

Eventually, her human eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she even found an oil-lamp and matches. She struck one, the odor of sulfur coloring the air. She lit the lamp, and explored the rooms, her bare feet silent on cold stone.

The quarters were huge—high ceilinged and expansive. There was a desk, couches before an empty hearth, tapestries on the walls. It was too dark to see what they depicted, but she peered at them for a long time in the darkness anyway, wondering.

The bed was luxurious, canopied, covered in silk. She was exhausted, still aching from the long ride and hollow with fear, and it looked so inviting. Saorlaith was mindful of whose bed it was, however. Prince Nuada haunted the dreams of every surviving man, faceless, wraith-like, leading the Unseen in their reclamation of the earth.

Finally, her hands trembling, she drew back the covers and climbed in, the same extrinsic scent rising up to meet her—like spice and leaves and night. The feeling of silk against her skin overwhelmed fear for a moment, and a sigh escaped her lips as she gathered the covers around her. Warmth crept into her sore limbs as it had when she'd bathed in the spring, but more so. It could have been exhaustion, or more magic from the Unseen. Either way, she was asleep almost instantly.


	2. The Destroyer

Days passed in silence. Young men delivered food (crusty bread and cheese and fruit from the forests, and wine, which she'd never tasted) and lit fires. Otherwise, she was left alone. Saorlaith spent her days leafing through Nuada's massive collection of books—none of which she could read. Some of them were easily hundreds of years old, weathered and dog-eared. She looked through the pictures at woodcuttings of epic battles, watercolors of peaceful agrarian scenes.

Then, one day when she slept (for the Unseen were nocturnal, and now so was she), the sound of trumpets came up to her from below. It startled her out of sleep. She dressed quickly again in one of the silk gowns the old woman had given her. It was deepest violet. Saorlaith's hands shook violently as she smoothed them through her hair. How long she survived was directly related to how attractive the Prince found her. And inside herself, she'd rediscovered a battered but still present will to live.

Hours passed like days. They were so silent—no boots thudded on the ground, no armor clanked. No voices were raised in jubilation.

Finally, when she thought her mind would break, she heard voices on the other side of the door. She recognized the voice of the old woman who'd spoken to her in the tongue of men, and a man's voice, soft but with unmistakable authority, both speaking in the flowing language of the Unseen. The discussion went on for some moments, the man sounding increasingly annoyed.

Then the door opened, and Nuada, the bringer of death, entered.

Saorlaith backed up involuntarily until she was touching the cold stone wall. He closed the door behind him, and they were alone, his form illuminated only by a single oil-lamp.

It caught on the silver crest on his breastplate, the white-gold hair that hung almost to his waist. The light skittered across his pale, scarred face, catching in particular on the amber eyes, rimmed in black, and on full dark lips. He was taller than she had expected, taller than her by half-a-head, but narrow-hipped and lean. Grace marked every step, power hummed in every movement. Nuada had lived ten of her lifetimes, and ended ten times that many. And yet the sight and smell of him (like autumn and spices and night) sent a shiver through her body that was only partially fear. He moved away, further into the darkness the oil-lamp could not penetrate

"Put that out, girl. I've had enough of light." His words floated to her from somewhere beyond. His speech was perfect, unaccented, and the tenor of his voice made her breath quicken.

She blew out the lamp, and was plunged into darkness. Saorlaith put out her hands, disoriented, backing up until she found the edge of the bed. One of her hands found the bedpost, and she held onto it as though it would anchor her.

The room was silent for agonizing moments, with only the sound of her breathing disturbing the still air. At last he spoke again, and his voice was right beside her. She startled, her blind eyes darting around as though she could find him.

"Unlike men, we don't take our own as slaves. I've never had much use for them, but the soldiers in my employ seem to think I've been...tense."

He chuckled, sliding past her in the darkness. He passed so close she could feel the air moving as he walked, feel the strands of his hair against her face. His laugh made goosebumps come up all over her body. It was a joyless sound—grim and taut.

I'm insane, she thought, feeling her body respond to his proximity in a completely unexpected way. I've got some desire to end my life, that's why I'm drawn to this monster, she told herself. But reason corrected her: This thing in front of you is death's avatar. Doing what he wants can't possibly be any more suicidal than defiance.

"Saorlaith." He said quietly. From the sound of his voice she could tell he was facing away from her, somewhere on the other side of the bed. "How old are you?"

It was the first time he had invited her to speak, and it wasn't a question she had an answer for. Once the cities fell, and the metal contraptions men once used to synchronize their time-keeping devices plummeted from the heavens, time became a tricky concept.

"About twenty. I...I think."

He snorted.

"And none of the human men managed to catch you in all that time?" He said, dryly.

Saorlaith blanched. She had no idea how he could know. She certainly hadn't told anyone. Virginity was a particular obsession of men—to the point that her own was her most closely guarded secret. And somehow he knew. She supposed they all had—maybe that was why they'd taken her.

"So young." He continued, now apparently closer to her. He may have been pacing, but his steps were so quiet and the windowless rooms so dark that she couldn't tell. Her eyes continued to search for him instinctively, even though she had no way of seeing him. Only the bedpost under her hand kept her from being wildly disoriented.

"Do you even know who I am?" He spoke again, now so close she could feel his breath on her throat, the exposed portions of her breasts.

Her mind seemed to jam up for a moment. She wasn't sure what was worse—her traitorous body that inexplicably wanted him or her practical mind that feared him appropriately.

"Prince Nuada Silverlance." She said at last.

He sighed.

"It would have been better for you, perhaps, not to know." He said, and she felt suddenly that he pitied her. Not an emotion she had expected from the being that had cleansed the earth of men with blood and fire.

His cold lips touched her neck, the tip of his tongue seemingly tasting her pulse-point. Saorlaith shivered, but warmth started somewhere in her belly and spread out between her legs.

Nuada chuckled, the sound starting deep in his chest. He inhaled deeply.

"I was going to tell you not to be afraid of me, but apparently you're not."

She whimpered, confused and, regardless of what he thought, completely terrified.

"I...is that...magic?"

"Magic? You mean a glamour? No. Apparently you find me appealing all on your own, little human girl. I'm flattered."

He touched her hair, moving it off of her shoulder. Then one fingertip came to rest gently on her lips, then trailed down her chin and whispered between her breasts before disappearing.

"I have to admit, I feel similarly. And I don't usually have time for such things."

"But I'm human."

"We're not so different—in the ways that matter at the moment. Why? Do I seem so alien?"

"No." She answered truthfully. What was there to lose? "You're beautiful. But I'm afraid of you."

The gown slipped off her shoulder. He nipped at her skin, and she was again surprised at how cold his lips were. Saorlaith drew a breath sharply.

"I have no intention of hurting you. In fact, you may even find your acquaintance with me...pleasurable." He said.

Her eyelids fluttered closed. Nuada didn't need to put a glamour on her to be utterly intoxicating. He put a cold hand to her face and she leaned into it, tired of fighting herself.

His lips met hers, his long hair whispering against her neck and shoulders. The smell of him already had a pleasant association for her: his bed was full of it. A bed where she'd been lying in warmth and comfort for the first time perhaps ever.

His lips opened hers, and his tongue was on her lips, then in her mouth, but gently. She should have resented the intrusion, or at least shivered at the chill of his touch, but she didn't. Something passed between them—she knew he felt it from the way he closed the distance between them in a half-step, pulling her into him.

Nuada had discarded his armor at some point in their conversation, and now she could feel his heart hammering against his ribs through the thin layers of fabric between them. Her breath was coming quick now, and she couldn't stop a moan from escaping as he pushed the gown off of her other shoulder and cupped a breast in his hand.

"There's something strange about you, little human girl." He whispered into her neck.

There was nothing strange about her, but she agreed that something unusual was happening. But if it was magic he would have known—the Unseen could see magic moving in the air like men saw smoke from a fire.

"Please..." Saorlaith said, trembling. "...I want to see you."

She was, of course, a slave making requests to a Prince. She wondered if he was about to make her regret speaking. But there was silence for a moment, and he withdrew. Then reality seemed to shimmer around them, and the oil-lamp on his desk re-lit itself.

Nuada was resplendent. His hair looked almost silvery for most of its length, before terminating in gold. His eyes, too, were striking in the dim light—amber with flecks of deep orange and scarlet. His pupils contracted suddenly in the light but he didn't look away, and she noticed with some satisfaction that she'd brought color to his white face.

His strange eyes (like the sun in the hottest months, she thought) flickered over her, studying her face, but he didn't move. She was puzzled for a moment as to what he was searching for. He could see her just as well in the dark—probably better, in fact. Then she realized that he was assessing her reaction to seeing him. His eyes caught on her parted lips, then found her eyes again, returning her gaze levelly. A smile touched his lips.

"Satisfied?" He said softly.

Saorlaith nodded, and the oil-lamp extinguished itself.

He didn't speak again, but scooped her up easily and deposited her in his bed, underneath the covers, then sliding in next to her.

Unbidden, she slid her hands under his tunic and pulled it over his head, discarding it. Her hands traveled along the muscles of his chest and stomach, catching on raised scars and one freshly stitched wound that made him hiss when she touched it.

He got a hand around her and undid the laces of her gown, pushing it down off of her hips and dropping it by the bedside with a flutter.

Nuada's cool touch traveled over her shoulders, then over her breasts and stomach, his strong fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hips. His mouth settled on her throat then a nipple, and she arched unconsciously into him, gasping.

Feeling emboldened by the blush she'd brought to his face, Saorlaith buried her hands in the Prince's long hair. It felt finer than human hair, almost silken, and to her satisfaction he made a decidedly pleasure-filled noise when she pulled her hands through it.

His muscled back was covered in scars. Her fingers trailed them even as she enjoyed his ministrations. She knew how he'd gotten these scars but something inside her wouldn't let her contemplate the fact for too long.

Saorlaith kissed his cool lips, his long hair falling onto her face and neck, drawing his weight down on herself.

Nuada put a knee between hers and slid between her legs, his hips settling between hers. She gasped when she felt him pressing into her, knowing that this was how it was done but not much more. In the moment, she'd forgotten how inexperienced she truly was, and she was frightened anew.

He chuckled softly from above her, his breath finally warm against her face.

"Did I not tell you I wouldn't hurt you?" He said.

Before she could answer, she felt his hand travel up her thigh before settling between her legs. He touched her softly, his fingers finding the warm wetness and sliding her open.

The tension went out of her slowly, replaced by a spreading pleasure. Saorlaith drew a sharp breath as he entered her with a finger, exploring gently. His presence inside her was strange, but felt undeniably good. He'd found the core of feelings she'd never explored, his touch building something up inside of her that she couldn't even identify.

Still feeling bold, Saorlaith slid a hand under the waistband of his leggings and touched him where she hadn't yet dared. She was rewarded with a gasp, and he rested his cool forehead against hers.

"Something..." Nuada's breath hitched, "...very strange about you."

Between the two of them they quickly had his trousers discarded. Saorlaith should have been frightened, horrified even. Plucked from the dark, hungry woods by soldiers, taken here to enemy's very compound as consort to the Prince himself—who, a human lifetime ago-led the army that destroyed the world of concrete and steel. And somehow she wasn't.

Nuada entered her carefully, and she found herself arching into him instead of away. He was kissing her and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips.

Her breath caught, pressure turning to pain for a moment...then easing. She released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. He was very still, his face hovering over hers. The darkness was complete, but she could feel his strange eyes on her face, his breath.

Feeling her relax under him, he kissed her again. Her heart felt like it would beat right out of her chest. She braced herself for pain that never came. He slid slowly into her again and she realized that it felt...good.

Nuada sighed against her mouth, and for a moment they were breathing the same air. There was a third stroke and unexpectedly, pleasure blossomed in her stomach and spread throughout her entire body, all the way into tingling fingertips.

"Yes." He whispered, shivering.

He moved slowly at first, his weight balanced one elbow, the other hand on her face, in her hair. His skin was slowly warming, heat spreading out from his heart until he was as warm as she was. Saorlaith wished again that she could see him, see the warmth she was bringing to his white face, see his eyes.

Something was building inside of her and he could feel it, pulling her along into a quicker rhythm. It started where their bodies met and became more insistent until she felt like it would overcome her.

"Let go." Nuada said, his voice throaty, and without knowing how, she did.

Sensation ripped through her, her nails digging into the flesh of his back, her legs tightening around him. The air seemed to shiver around them, and for a moment she was somewhere else entirely (green fields long destroyed, flashing amber eyes, fires on the horizon) then she was back in the Prince's bed.

He'd rolled them over so that she was resting on his heaving chest. His lips found hers again, then kissed her neck, again seeming to hover over her pulse-point. He shivered again.

"Call me by my name, Saorlaith." He said in a raw whisper.

"Nuada." She said once, burying her hands again in his soft hair, and she felt his lashes move against her cheek as his eyes closed.


	3. Time and Friends Gone

Nuada Silverlance was awake and back beyond the walls of the compound when the last rays of the sun disappeared. He took a detachment of twelve men and they rode west hard until the moon came out—less brilliant than it was once, but the sky had been tainted for so long...

The men he brought with him all seemed so young. None of them had even been born when the truce was signed with humans. Most hadn't even seen the myriad betrayals that followed in the decades after. Their distaste for humanity was fueled entirely by the world they'd taken their first breaths in: air and water thick with acrid chemicals, the forests flattened and paved, the lesser creatures of the earth penned and slaughtered casually en masse.

There wasn't one among them who didn't respect him, wasn't grateful to him-but that didn't mean they were friends.

Wink had been his friend. Since they were children, in fact. Wink probably would have made several sideways remarks about the woman they'd thrown to him, but as it was, none of the soldiers even mentioned it. And it had been their damned idea in the first place.

On horseback, moving quickly across the moors, Nuada had time to consider the entire episode.

He'd been upset when Rhiana had casually remarked that some of the soldiers had brought him a prisoner. As though bringing a human girl into his inner sanctum was something that wouldn't concern him.

His mind traveled along darker paths. Elven women of a comparable age to his own were more or less extinct. Their women were more delicate, and the tainted water and the chemical-ridden food and the noxious air killed most girls before they reached adolescence. To say nothing of the predations of human men.

Regardless, Nuada felt no longing for the females of the fading human race. Even though it had been easily two-hundred winters since he'd felt a woman's hand on his face, a woman's breath on his throat. Well, previous to a day ago.

The experience had been out-of-character enough that he'd asked Rhiana (who was wise in the ways of magic) if she felt anything unusual on him before he left. His reaction of the black-haired human girl was not only confounding but troubling. Perhaps he was going soft in his advanced age.

Then they found a camp, and as he let the hot blood of his enemies out into the earth, and he felt better.

Human men were different now: desperate, and therefore more dangerous, not softened by the so-called modern age. And yet, the ragtag bands he still came across were no challenge for one such as him. At times he felt his need for vengeance faltering, but then he remembered all the dead soldiers and never-to-be-women and Wink and his father and he fought on. Sometimes he even thought of Nuala, but then he couldn't sleep for days.

He was wiping their stinking blood off of his spear when, unbidden, anger unfurled itself at the base of his skull. He had chosen this path for his people. He had become a monster because only a monster could do what needed to be done. Whatever attraction he had to the human girl was brought on by pathological loneliness, and that was not an emotion that had any place in his life.

Sex was one thing, but he would not allow himself to become emotionally compromised. And he would not allow some illiterate human girl to think she was more than a slave, even if she was the slave that shared his bed.


End file.
